'Chicago 10' a fun take on social activism

Al Alexander

Wednesday

Feb 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 27, 2008 at 3:35 AM

“Chicago 10” is a refreshingly unconventional documentary by Brett Morgen (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) that cleverly exhumes a 20th-century relic from a drug-induced haze and spins it into a 21st-century treatise on social activism.

After word leaked that Abbie Hoffman had told a Chicago city official that he’d take $100,000 to call off the massive demonstration planned for the 1968 Democratic Convention, a reporter asked the Yippie leader if he had been serious. A bemused Hoffman answered that he most certainly was not.

Without hesitation, the gregarious Hoffman replied with rare gravity and conviction, “My life.”

It’s one of the most riveting moments in “Chicago 10,” a refreshingly unconventional documentary by Brett Morgen (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) that cleverly exhumes a 20th-century relic from a drug-induced haze and spins it into a 21st-century treatise on social activism.

Cleverly melding archival footage and animation, Morgen creates a genuinely mind-blowing experience that makes no bones about its intent to pass the proverbial doobie down to a new generation. Or it would if there were only someone there to accept it.

Just where are they; the Hoffmans and their ilk, willing to risk personal safety and freedom to speak out against war, political corruption and human despair?

Morgen wants to know, and by using his recreation of the shameful miscarriage of justice that was the Chicago 8 trial he hopes to motivate the latent Hoffmans to stand up and be heard.

He’s pretty persuasive, too; using “Chicago 10” (the number includes defense lawyers William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass) to serve as a reminder of (or an introduction to, depending on your age) an era 40 years ago when student protests and demonstrations were as common as a cold.

Actions that often got physical, as was the case when thousands literally had their heads bashed by a police force lorded over by Chicago’s dictatorial mayor, Richard Daley.

It was a shocking sight, one that remains seared in the minds of anyone watching the TV coverage of the Democratic National Convention that sweltering August evening. It was brutal and shameful, but it was not in vain, as evidenced by the seismic shift in how Americans viewed the Vietnam War soon after.

Daley, of course, blamed the protestors for the riot that many say cost Hubert Humphrey, a Daley favorite, the 1968 presidential election.

The mayor’s revenge, of course, was the notorious trial that threatened to put perceived “riot instigators” Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, Bobby Seale, Lee Weiner, John Froines and Hoffman behind bars for up to 10 years.

Because cameras weren’t allowed in courtrooms back then, Morgen was faced with the prospect of having to rely on cheesy re-enactments until he hit upon the idea of using stop-motion animation and rounding up a host of Hollywood stars (Nick Nolte, Hank Azaria, Jeffrey Wright, Mark Ruffalo, et al) to supply the voices.

The result is not only effective it’s perfectly in keeping with the cartoon-like atmosphere that prevailed throughout a monkey trial that can only be described as surreal.

Whether it was the regular outbursts by Hoffman (voiced by Azaria) or a succession of perplexing rulings by addled Judge Julius Hoffman (voiced terrifically by the late Roy Scheider), the place was a three-ring circus.

Never more so than the day Judge Hoffman ordered Seale (Wright), the co-leader of the Black Panther Party, bound and gagged simply because he demanded to be heard because he was without legal counsel.

Even with the eye-popping animation, “Chicago 10” might have grown staid had Morgen not melded it with rarely seen footage of both the riot and the various activities that lead up to it.

It’s no coincidence that the best clips feature Abbie Hoffman, the brilliant and endlessly charismatic Worcester native who emerges as the defacto star of “Chicago 10.” He was a true renaissance man, as Morgen illustrates using clips of Hoffman in his various incarnations, from radical protestor to stand-up comedian.

No matter your opinion of him going in, you emerge with a newfound respect and admiration for the guy and his co-defendants, whose level of commitment to the cause is stirring.

Now, more than ever, America could use another just like him. It’s not impossible that he or she is out there, and a rousing film like “Chicago” could stir them to action.

Grade: B +

Rated R. “Chicago 10” contains language and brief sexual images.

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